Thursday, August 17, 2006

The lack of willingness of one Muslim to criticize another member of his tribe, no matter how egregious their behavior, speaks volumes about the Muslim World.

It is clear that the use of children as weapons against their enemies is acceptable to a large portion of the Muslim World. At the very least, the use of children as weapons is less objectionable to the Muslim World than publicly renouncing other Muslims for using the weapon.

A couple apparently planned to use their baby as a prop to facilitate their plan to destroy a UK to US airplane over the Atlantic. Communities throughout the Muslim world celebrate the death of their children killing other's children. This is a seriously disordered community. What will it take to make the so-called Moderate Muslims question their own community's standards?

Many individual Muslims, I am certain, were horrified by Beslan and are horrified by terrorism, especially terror directed at other children and using Muslim children. Yet, if "my tribe right or wrong" precludes criticism of those acting in the name of Islam, that determines the default position of the Muslim World to be support of the worst excesses of Islamic terrorists. This sets them against everything that civilization stands for.

If Beslan did not snap Islam out of its fantasy based ecstatic terror, what will?

What is more disturbing to me are those schooled in the Golden Rule, who know better, women who have survived generations of oppression, who support and excuse this behavior. Why would Americans schooled in a Judeo-Christian foundation be so willing to dismiss terrorist horrors and diminish the threat they present?